Hello everyone! In today's news update I am going to be revealing a glimpse into Mistmere Island, the setting for the Dungeon Buster demo.

Mistmere was a quiet place. Mistmere was a tranquil place. But then the children started to go missing. Stepping onto the island it isn't immediately obvious that something is wrong; birds sing happily as the sun beats down. But if you look close enough and you'll start to notice the tension just under the surface. Locals whisper of a cult that kidnaps children to use in rituals, others speak of an ancient dormant curse cast on the island that was triggered by an unwitting adventurer. Some even say that the children were kidnapped into the Void by the Gods themselves. Step into the tan leather boots of Buster as he travels through this mystical island, ultimately trying to avoid any hassle but becoming unavoidably involved anyway.

Mistmere is packed full of villages to visit, dungeons to plunder, and secrets to discover. The overworld will consist of a variety of settings including villages, ruins, islets, beaches and forests. Each aspect of the environments is being lovingly crafted to make for the most rewarding exploration experience, so that you won't get bored whilst you're out exploring the island. In terms of underworld there will be everything from small tombs to sprawling dungeons to unearth and explore, along with an extremely generous portion of houses to loot. Take a look at the screenshots below to get an idea of what the overworld is going to look like. As ever these are all work in progress and may change before the final release.

These screenshots illustrate the small village of Fothdara and the adjoining Bleakrest Graveyard. Fothdara is a fishing village on the southern tip of Mistmere, birthplace of the Honourable Knight Finna who is laid to rest in the nearby Bleakrest Graveyard. Finna was a local legend who went on to captain the Royal Guard of Jorokiim on the mainland. Fothdara is one of the first locations featured in the demo, and is a key location in the story of the island.

Not all of the dungeons are well lit either, so you'll need to exercise caution if you don't want to end up on the business end of a bottomless pit.

In other development news, the dialogue has been tweaked with a more readable font and the whole system by which dialogue is created has been simplified. The most time consuming aspect is creating a rich palette of scenery to decorate Mistmere and make it as visually appealing as possible. Below is an example of a crumbling stone tower in three different variations.

You may also have noticed the audio that was recently uploaded "The Dungeon's Hero", a fantastic WIP theme for the game being created by the very talented Maurice Theißen. Give it a listen if you haven't already, it's a very chilled out piece of hybrid 8bit bliss.

Changing how the dungeons look a little bit, just to squeeze as much atmosphere into them as possible.

Old:

New:

Some new enemy types have also been added to the game:

Flail Knight:

Slimes (and a Dread Knight):

As you can see some of the enemies aren't animated fully yet, but that will come soon. Depth/Z sorting between NPCs is another stumbling block we've hit, so if anyone can offer up any tips for solving the issue it would be greatly appreciated!

Looking really great. Must say i prefer the old arched style doors to the new flat ones, they had more character.

For the Zdepth issue, how about giving each object a variable called Zdepth or whatever, then always set that variable to their Y pos. Then for each object pick by lowest variable and send to back of layer. It's a bit more tricky since we don't have access to setting the z order number directly like you can in mmf.

Changing how the dungeons look a little bit, just to squeeze as much atmosphere into them as possible.

Old:

New:

As you can see some of the enemies aren't animated fully yet, but that will come soon. Depth/Z sorting between NPCs is another stumbling block we've hit, so if anyone can offer up any tips for solving the issue it would be greatly appreciated!

This is a small criticism, but I wondered why your brown doors do not follow the perspective like everything else. Look at the grey door on the right and notice that the sides of the door are in perspective. The sides of the brown door, on the other hand, are perfectly parallel, and this makes them not fit the perspective. If you were to fix this, it would make them sit down in the level better.

Also, in regards to sorting, I created a thread a while back where I needed help getting objects to sort properly. The solution was pretty easy, so I'll post a link to the thread. Let me know if that helps you.

@DrewMelton It's just a case of me being lazy and putting it off over and over, I'll definitely fix it though. Thanks for the link, I'll give it a look and implement your solution.

@Pixel perfick He has abs of STEEEEEEEEEL

@Ethan I'll probably get those arches back in once I get the doors perspective sorted out, I preferred it with the arch too tbh. Thanks for the idea, I'll give it a go and see how it works out!

@Illuminati It is absolutely inspired by the hundreds and hundreds of hours I put into LoZ: Link's Awakening as a kid, it's been my dream to make a game like it. Feel free to PM as soon as you have that rep up enough! Or alternatively email me at [email protected]

Very nice thing you have going on here. Would be nice to contribute something to it, but I understand if it gets too complicated if there are lot of people putting something in. I was thinking mainly on the logic side.